“No one dreamed of a Blind Spot and what it may lead to, what it might contain.  We are five-sensed; we interpret the universe by the measure of five yardsticks.  Yet, the Blind Spot takes even those away; the more we know, it seems, the less certain we are of ourselves.  As I said to Mme. Le Fabre, it is a difficult question to determine, after all, just who are the ghosts.  At any rate, I know”—­and he paused for effect—­“I know that there are uncounted millions who look upon us and our workings as entirely supernatural!

“Remember that what I have to tell you is just as real as your own lives have been since babyhood.

“It was slightly over a year ago that my last night on the earth arrived.

“I had gone out for the evening, in the forlorn hope of meeting a friend, of having some slight taste of pleasure before the end came.

“For several days I had been labouring under a sort of premonition, knowing that my life was slowly seeping away and that my vitality was slipping, bit by bit, to what I thought must be death.  Had I then known what I know now, I could have saved myself.  But if I had done it, if I had saved myself, we would never have found Dr. Holcomb.

“Perhaps it was the same fate that led me to Harry, that night.  I don’t know.  Nevertheless, if there is any truth in what I have learned on the other side of the Blind Spot, it would seem that there is something higher than mere fate.  I had never believed in luck; but when everything works out to a fraction of a breath, one ceases to be sceptical on the question of destiny and chance. I say, everything that happened that night was forced from the other side.  In short, my giving that ring to Harry was simply a link in the chain of circumstances.  It just had to be; the prophecy would not have had it otherwise.”

Without stopping to explain what he meant by the word “prophecy,” Watson went on: 

“That’s what makes it puzzling.  I have never been able to understand how every bit has dovetailed with such exactness.  We—­ you and I—­are certainly not supernatural; and yet, on the other side of the Spot, the proof is overwhelmingly convincing.

“I was very weak that night.  So weak that it is difficult for me to remember.  The last I recollect was my going to the back of the house; to the kitchen, I think.  I had a light in my hands.  The boys were in the front room, waiting.  One of them had opened a door some yards away from where I stood.

“Coming as it did, on the instant, it is difficult to describe.  But I knew it instinctively for what it was:  the dot of blue on the ceiling, and the string of light.  Then, a sensation of falling, like dropping into space itself.  It is hard to describe the horrifying terror of plunging head on from an immense height to a plain at a vastly lower level.